Posted on 12/11/2019 3:44:21 PM PST by Drango
A Silicon Valley startup has completed what appears to be the first commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck, which finished a 2,800-mile-run from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania for Land O’Lakes in under three days. The trip was smooth like butter, 40,000 pounds of it.
Plus.ai, a 3-year-old company in Cupertino, announced the milestone Tuesday. A safety driver was aboard the autonomous semi, ready to take the wheel if needed, along with a safety engineer who observed how things were going.
“We wanted to demonstrate the safety, reliability and maturity of our overall system,” said Shawn Kerrigan, co-founder and chief operating officer of the company, in an interview Monday. The company’s system uses cameras, radar and lidar — laser-based technology to help vehicles determine distance — and handled the different terrains and weather conditions such as rain and low visibility well, he said.
The truck, which traveled on interstates 15 and 70 right before Thanksgiving, had to take scheduled breaks but drove mostly autonomously. There were zero “disengagements,” or times the self-driving system had to be suspended because of a problem, Kerrigan said.
Plus.ai has been running freight every week for about a year, its COO said, but this is the first cross-country trip and partnership it has talked about publicly.
End of year is peak butter time, according to Land O’Lakes.
“To be able to address this peak demand with a fuel- and cost-effective freight transport solution will be tremendously valuable to our business,” said Yone Dewberry, the butter maker’s chief supply officer, in a statement.
How long will it be before self-driving trucks are delivering goods regularly across the nation’s highways? Kerrigan thinks it’s “a few years out.”
Dan Ives, managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities, predicts there will be quite a few autonomous freight-delivery pilots in 2020 and 2021, with the beginning of a commercial rollout in 2022. Like other experts, he believes the trucking industry will be the first to adopt autonomous technology on a mass scale.
The timeline will depend on regulations, which vary state to state, he said.
About 10 to 15 companies nationwide are working on autonomous freight delivery, Ives said. That includes San Francisco-based self-driving truck startup Embark Trucks, which last year completed a five-day, 2,400-mile cross-country trip. But that truck carried no freight.
I remember going into department stores with my mother in the 50s. They all had foot-sizing machines. You stepped on the machine and put the front of your body against it. You could look down in the machine and see the dark outlines of your feet wearing shoes. Then your size would come up on the screen.
When I was in HS the machines disappeared. The x-rays were said to make people sterile.
East Bound and Down....
I remember seeing those machines, but was never fitted with one. We had the wooden foot measure, and then they graduated to the metal ones. We didn’t have a car, and whenever one of us got sick, our family doctor still made house calls. I think he charged my mother two bucks to come to the house. I always ended up with earaches, and he’d have to give me a penicillin shot in my butt. I ended up having to have my tonsils out when I was five. I can still remember the smell of the ether or chloroform they used. They put a strainer like gadget over my nose and mouth, and the last thing I remember seeing is the big light overhead, and spots in front of my eyes. The only thing I wanted was for my mother to buy me a Princess Summerfallwinterspring marionette from The Howdy Doody Show. She got me one too. I was the baby of the family, and she spoiled me.
I have a guy in my building named Buffalo Bob Smith
LOL!! That’s funny.
There has to be a driver on board now, during proving stage. Short sighted to think they will always be required.
That was the good old days, tripping out the door because the operator could never stop even with the floor.
New anything is never better until it is.
We could do it even faster if we set up a national network of super massive slingshots and rope net catchers.
That is the easy part for them.
His rig didn't crash on its own, he drove it into the crash.
Just some food for thought here ...
I don't think they are developing self driving trains, at least the big ones. They have had self driving transport on rails around Houston airport for 30 years. Ships are already being turned into self driving freighters.
It will happen no matter what we think because it can. As far as trains go I think they still require firemen on them and I haven't seen a steam engine powered train in a while.
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